Since January first of 1981 (my first day of practice as a
divorce mediator), rarely does a working day go by without a
client mentioning an affair. I don't hear about an affair. Sitting
at my round mediation table with the divorcing couple, I listen
as an angry spouse bitterly condemns the betrayal of their
partner. Simultaneously, I notice the heavy silence from the
one who's had (or having) the affair. Rarely are there
protestations of innocence nor are any reasons offered to
the inevitable questions hurled by their spouse. I sit and
wonder, wanting to know how I can help. I want to know what
causes a married spouse to have an affair.

Carol's Story:

Recently, a friend of mine, Carol, visited me in Boston. We
had dinner at one of those quaint, outside restaurants on
Newbury Street. Well-dressed passers-by and new lovers
provided our backdrop. I told Carol of my interest in knowing
why married men and women have affairs. Carol coughed
politely and squirmed. I waited to hear what she had to say.
Carol told me her story. Ten years earlier, when she was
thirty-nine, "My husband was ignoring me. Not big-time, mind
you, but we'd been married for a while, and other things had
his attention, especially those damn TV sports. It started to
bother me a lot. I read the right books, even tried to liven
things up, you know, candlelight dinners, sexy lingerie, and
all. I even saw a therapist." She looked at me, chagrined.
"Funny, huh? See, I didn't want a divorce, I just wanted Sam
to change, but he didn't. His baseball-watching drove me
crazy. One day I went to a friend's 40th birthday party. Sam
had begged off, and I was irritated enough to go alone. Let
him have his game. This guy stared at me right away.
Anyway, all night long he paid a lot of attention to me. As I
was leaving, Richard asked for my number. I felt scared, but
I was excited when I gave it to him. Two days later he called
me. We started sleeping together right away. It was great,
but it ended in a short while. I was afraid of getting caught.
He was so sweet. One night, what else is new, Sam had his
TV game on watching a baseball game, of course. I was in
the kitchen cleaning up when I heard Richard's voice. It
startled me--hearing his voice. I waited for the camera to
focus on the speaker, and, sure enough, it was Richard. I sat
down and watched the rest of the game. Sam kept looking
over at me, like I'd lost my mind, but, true to character, he
never mentioned it." I shook my head, "That's a great story, Carol." She smiled
and reached for my hand. "You never know how people will
respond, you know?" I smiled back. "To this day, I have a soft spot in my heart for baseball
games. In fact, more than once, Sam has shaken his head
over my refusal to watch any other sport. Actually, Sam and I
have gotten along a little better since Richard."

THE PRIMARY REASON

For married men, having an affair has always been
somewhat tolerated (though Clinton may yet change that).
Today, almost as many married women as married men are
having affairs.

Why do wives and husbands have affairs?

Rarely is there a single reason why a person has an affair,
rather, there are a multitude of reasons. Take my friend,
Carol, for example. She said that she had an affair because
she wanted more attention from her husband, however, if
you spoke with her husband, Sam, he would tell you that she
was the one who was distancing from him. The factors that
Carol didn't mention, though they came through loud and
clear in her story, were that she wanted some excitement in
her life, that her self-esteem was in need of a lift, and lo and
behold, she was forty-two and, as she acknowledges now in
retrospect, she was going through a mid-life crisis. And it
would be naive to assume that revenge was not a factor in
Carol's choice of a partner for her affair.

Though reasons for an affair are many, often they can be
identified, generally, there is one primary reason. This
primary reason may not be easily discernible, especially if
that reason feels inappropriate to the person. For example,
Carol might give excitement or attention as reasons for an
affair, but she would avoid mentioning her low self-esteem. I
know that when I mentioned the word, "revenge" as a
possible motive, she became defensive and a little angry. "I
told you that I didn't know what he did for a living until we
were already involved." But coincidences do often speak for
themselves. Here is a woman who is jealous of her
husband's devotion to sports, specifically baseball, and she
sleeps with a TV baseball announcer!

In order to understand the reasons a married person has an
affair, it helps to understand the man or woman, however, as
with any cause and effect dynamic, generalizations may still
be made. Factors which make it difficult to know the real
reasons are that all of us like to think that we're doing things
for a reason which makes sense.

An affair has two possible directions: one, the affair
continues, or two, the affair ends. The possibilities
encountered on either path are whether or not the spouse
knows of the adultery and whether or not the marital
relationship ends.

DIVORCING COUPLES:

To many professionals who deal with this issue regularly, it
seems clear that the purpose of the affair is often to end the
relationship.

Contrary to the popular cultural belief that people shed a
marriage as they do last year's coat, marriages are often
difficult to end. The difficulty exists because there are strong
factors which influence spouses to keep their marriage
together. First is our belief that marriage is forever.
Traditionalists have long maintained that one should stay
married unless there are good reasons to divorce. Over the
year, those "good" reasons haven't changed much. They still
consist of the famous three: drinking, domestic violence, and
the affair.

A second factor which helps to hold marriages together is
our American belief in the ability of a person to change. We
embrace the idea that people can change themselves if they
choose to do so. (Yet how many of us desire to change our
eating habits, to lose weight, or to become more physically
fit, and how many of us do it?)

Factors which help to keep marriage intact are not limited to
the two reasons just cited. A third reason is that society
continues to regard divorce as a personal failure. Though we
are a society with a relatively high divorce rate, divorce is not
considered a good thing nor even a neutral event. Society,
as well as the couple, inevitably believe that marriage is for
life. It doesn't matter that the ideal is more myth than true. It
is a myth which people cling to. And, it may come as no
surprise that society generally holds the wife more
responsible for the success of a marriage than the husband.
Actually, a marriage is difficult to end. The spouse, the
friends, and the family, all want "good" reasons for a divorce.
We marry for our feelings, not for good reasons, yet at the
prospect of divorce, people want solid reasons and not
simply "feelings."

If a person wants a divorce and his or her spouse doesn't,
one way to ensure that the spouse will agree to a divorce is
to have an affair, though it may not be a conscious decision,
it works.

SOME DIFFERENT KINDS OF AFFAIRS

Excitement/Adventure

Companionship/Understanding

Romance/Love

Lust/Sex

One Night Stands/Opportunity

Attention/Acknowledgment

Revenge/Tit for Tat

Freedom/Escape

Independence/Separateness

Bisexual/Lesbian/Gay

Power/Control

To be different/to be yourself

To end the marriage

1. EXCITEMENT AND ADVENTURE

The reason for this kind of affair is driven by a desire to put
excitement and adventure into life. Almost by definition,
affairs are filled with excitement: a new lover, secret
meetings, intensity, the danger of getting caught. The
novelty and differentness of it are an adventure. It is pretty
much a guarantee that excitement and adventure will be part
and parcel of an affair.

2. UNDERSTANDING AND COMPANIONSHIP

Many individuals need to feel understood and want that
understanding from their spouse. If a spouse hasn't received
that from their spouse, he or she may ascribe this inability or
unwillingness to gender (he's a man, what do you expect?)
or personality (she just doesn't get it) or communication
styles (he has never been able to have that kind of
dialogue). When that person finds a lover who gives her the
understanding and companionship she seeks, it's indeed a
powerful draw.

For other folks, he or she may not expect understanding
from her mate. Her finding it in a lover is unanticipated--and
that makes it all the more enjoyable.

3. ROMANCE/LOVE

After years of watching romantic movies, listening to sappy
love songs, and fantasizing what "happily ever after" should
mean, some individuals long for romance in their life. These
men and women may never have had romance, or they had
it so long ago they have forgotten. They may choose a
partner who is reminiscent of a Gothic tale, an emotionally
tortured man or a woman poet. Some do not engage in sex,
but seek and enjoy sending flowers, writing a poem, and
looking forward to the hide-a-way lunches.

A search for love is probably the stereotypical reason many
people think a married woman has an affair. Since sex is still
thought of as a "male" thing, society continues to assume
that women are not motivated by sex. Rather, the idea of
love is seen as central to a woman's existence, "love is to
man a thing apart; 'tis women's whole existence." Tennyson.
The search for love may not be the driving reason, many
assume, since many women believe that love belongs in
marriage.

4. LUST/SEX

If ever there is one factor which is assumed to drive an affair,
this is it. For a number of men and women, this certainly
exists as the primary reason. If the husband is having an
affair, the assumption is that the wife has lost interest in sex.
A few years back, a B-grade movie titled "Jade," portrayed a
woman married to a powerful lawyer who was lustful after his
wife. Their lovemaking, was, by her insistence "traditional,"
consisting of intercourse. One of the characters in the movie
is a high-priced prostitute suspected of murdering a big-shot.
During the investigation, various men described this woman
(known as "Jade") as "wanting to be fucked from the
rear...she loved it and couldn't get enough." Though only a
movie (and a bad one at that) it exemplifies another reason
for an affair: a spouse wanting a different kind of sex.
"Vanilla" is the term for boring, traditional sex. Some women
and men are bored by vanilla sex, and want sex which is
more daring.

5. ONE-NIGHT STAND/OPPORTUNITY

Generation X may not call them "one night stands" anymore.
Today, these sexual rendezvous take place at conferences
and meetings which one attends as an employee.
The reasons for one-night stands vary, from wanting a
different sex partner to enhancing self-esteem, but generally,
all share one common theme--opportunity. Curiosity is a
factor, for many women and men often have one-night
stands because the possibility exists--and the risks are
minimal.

We have not talked much about risk, but risk is a factor. For
women (and here there is a difference between genders),
the price of an affair may be higher than it is for men.
These liaisons are generally the least threatening of all of the
kinds of affairs.

6. ATTENTION/ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Attention and acknowledgment are generally thought of as
components of self-esteem. They help to make a person feel
O.K. A dose of self-esteem is a basic requirement for a
healthy person.

The importance of self-esteem cannot be underrated. Each
of us needs to feel that he or she is a worthy person. If a
married spouse does not have that basic feeling of
self-esteem, she or he may very well go out and get it. Of
course, one does not "get" self-esteem by having an affair,
rather, self-esteem develops early in life and is shaped
during our lifetimes. Parents, teachers, friends, neighbors,
and others help create self-esteem.

It is not unusual for a woman or man who lacks self-esteem
to have an affair with someone who makes her or him feel
O.K. Ironically, the affair may indeed begin their path to
self-esteem.

7. REVENGE/TIT FOR TAT

I started this article with the story of Carol, the woman who is
married to a baseball fan. She chose to have an affair with a
man who "turned out to be a baseball announcer." It's an
interesting story, and though you may not label it as
"revenge," that's what it is. When Carol brought up his
dedication to sports, Sam said he understood, yet he
continued his behavior. Carol loved her husband and didn't
want a divorce. Since she couldn't change Sam, she took
matters into her own hands. To this day, Carol denies that
revenge was her motive. Carol says that it was simply a
coincidence that the man she choose to sleep with "turned
out to be a baseball announcer." That's just too big of a
coincidence for most of us.

The typical reason for revenge is that the spouse has had an
affair and the other spouse feels some sense of justification
to also have an affair, to get back at that spouse. As a
divorce mediator, I hear a lot about this kind of affair.
Frequently, it occurs in reaction to the husband or wife's
discovery of the spouse having an affair. After confronting
the unfaithful spouse or rather than confront the unfaithful
spouse, he or she chooses to engage in the same behavior.

8. FREEDOM/ESCAPE

Thelma and Louise may be dead, but in many hearts they
live on. Some married women feel trapped, confined in their
roles of wife, homemaker, and mother. It's one of the major
themes of books and movies. Meryl Streep, the star of "The
Bridges of Madison County" played a midwestern housewife
who had an affair with Clint Eastwood. The director sets the
stage prior to her meeting Clint: a stable, unexciting
husband, the isolation of a farm, two almost grown children,
and no indication of outside home involvement. She falls in
love with him and he offers her the opportunity to escape.

Her affair is her escape, she never leaves her home and
escape from her life. Eastwood entreats her to go off with
him, and she refuses, and much of middle American women
were divided not over the affair, but over whether or not she
should have left her married life and gone off with her lover.

THE CHANGING WORLD OF WIVES AND HUSBANDS

Years ago, the challenges for a spouse were
different--easier, many would say. The focus was on doing
your duty, fulfilling your role as a husband or wife. A "search
for yourself" was not the focus of a person's life, in fact, it
was rarely mentioned. Now, we are expected to "search for
ourself" and take care of the others in our life-- spouse,
children, aging parents, a house, and for women, balance a
career with it all. For men, the expectation is to be "sensitive"
as well.

The pressure on husbands and wives is to do it all is as
never before. Even sex with a spouse has pressure--how
often, what kind of orgasm, and not just the kind, but how
many. Years ago, you spread your legs every Saturday night
after the bath, you did it and both of you rolled over and went
to sleep. No "who goes first" or "did we have equal time" or
"orgasm thermometer." In and out. Duty done.

One way to escape our responsibilities would be to enter
another world. However, we don't become missionaries nor
nuns, too much responsibility for that, and no, we rarely walk
away from our kids, and we can't just ignore the demands of
our aging parents, so we stay and try to do it all, and let's
face it, we need money to live.

A lot of us go to therapy and find support for all that we have
to do and want to do. It helps. Some of us even manage to
change a little, to fix our boundaries, to learn to say "no" for
the first time. The more athletically predisposed join gyms
and fitness centers and physically work out pressures. Many
find supportive friends. Talking helps. We joint support
groups and interest groups, bonding together with strangers
in order to be able to share the vulnerabilities we do not want
to burden our loved ones with. The groups help too. Many
take ways which ultimately add to their troubles. They drink
too much, or engage in recreational drugs. Others use the
legitimate drugs, Zoloft and Prozac are common names, as
a way to avoid depression.

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